Women who Love too Much Community Group
WHEN BEING IN LOVE, MEANS BEING IN PAIN... This group is to help women through the journey of realizing they can love themselves. To help realize that they are capable of having a happy, healthy, whole relationship and break the cycle of abuse and heartache from loving emotionally unavailable men.
So I am thinking about this for myself now. I started reading about it because of the "addicted to pain" part in the description of Women Who Love Too Much.
I can identify with this as I did learn to hate myself growing up and that I wasn't worth much in my family of origin. I also looked up "the compulsion to repeat the original trauma" and it got me thinking how trying to get a hurtful person treat you better actually is a masochistic thing to do.
I do this with my mother. She has shown herself time and time again to be punishing towards me when I try to express my pain or what I would like from her, yet I've repeated it over and over trying to get her to listen or understand me even though it has resulted in me being re-traumatized again and again. I've also done with friends who aren't really good friends.
It makes sense that I'm not okay with the way she treats me, but it's not an effective way to assert oneself and take care of oneself to complain and express pain to a hurtful or uncaring person about their behavior that is hurting you. It's assertive to either set strong boundaries or just not allow that person in your life.
I got thinking about it, too, because it really struck me how right after I felt successful for putting my foot down and breaking up with my boyfriend I immediately began setting up another situation where I did not feel good about myself and began to feel out of control again and defeated and putting myself down.
I stopped that ( :D) but it really got me thinking about why I immediately did that instead of just enjoying my day of success and standing up for myself. I do have a fear of being successful, not just in the relationship area of my life but in the whole thing.
I've noticed in other parts of my life that I would get depressed or highly anxious after succeeding at something. Anyway, I'm going to keep working on this. Can anyone else relate about not being comfortable with success or having masochistic/self defeating tendencies?
I feel good that I am fixing my 'part' in our sick dance. It's highly unlikely we can ever work things out but at least by addressing my masochism I am changing my role as a great dance partner for his sadism. Uck!
I learned early on how to be the perfect compliment to a narcissistic personality in my family: to aggrandize the narcissist while downplaying myself and/or putting myself down. I wonder why...for acceptance? Probably. Painful stuff but great to be having these realizations.
I can identify with this as I did learn to hate myself growing up and that I wasn't worth much in my family of origin. I also looked up "the compulsion to repeat the original trauma" and it got me thinking how trying to get a hurtful person treat you better actually is a masochistic thing to do.
I do this with my mother. She has shown herself time and time again to be punishing towards me when I try to express my pain or what I would like from her, yet I've repeated it over and over trying to get her to listen or understand me even though it has resulted in me being re-traumatized again and again. I've also done with friends who aren't really good friends.
It makes sense that I'm not okay with the way she treats me, but it's not an effective way to assert oneself and take care of oneself to complain and express pain to a hurtful or uncaring person about their behavior that is hurting you. It's assertive to either set strong boundaries or just not allow that person in your life.
I got thinking about it, too, because it really struck me how right after I felt successful for putting my foot down and breaking up with my boyfriend I immediately began setting up another situation where I did not feel good about myself and began to feel out of control again and defeated and putting myself down.
I stopped that ( :D) but it really got me thinking about why I immediately did that instead of just enjoying my day of success and standing up for myself. I do have a fear of being successful, not just in the relationship area of my life but in the whole thing.
I've noticed in other parts of my life that I would get depressed or highly anxious after succeeding at something. Anyway, I'm going to keep working on this. Can anyone else relate about not being comfortable with success or having masochistic/self defeating tendencies?
I feel good that I am fixing my 'part' in our sick dance. It's highly unlikely we can ever work things out but at least by addressing my masochism I am changing my role as a great dance partner for his sadism. Uck!
I learned early on how to be the perfect compliment to a narcissistic personality in my family: to aggrandize the narcissist while downplaying myself and/or putting myself down. I wonder why...for acceptance? Probably. Painful stuff but great to be having these realizations.
I like the way you're thinking on this, though, you're really trying to identify patterns and causes in yourself instead of focusing on him.
Exactly! :P Thanks, I really am trying to figure this out. I read something yesterday that pain increases endorphins? Hmm...
This is a really interesting article about imprinting and the effects of effort produced by goslings in keeping up with/following the object of the imprint (made during a critical period). This includes increased bonding in cases where the experimenters accidentally stepped on a goslings foot, as well as when goslings had imprinted with older fowl of a different species that bullied/picked on the goslings, ironically creating a stronger bond. It has been hypothesized (I don't remember where I read this) that a similar phenomena happens with humans in abusive situations. The field of thought that connects this to more fundamental roots of behavior where we are socialized from a very young age in the relationships we choose later on based on how we have bonded with caregivers at critical developmental periods.